Some HDTV questions

[az_bont]

When talking about non-game content, the difference between 1080i and 1080p is largely irrelevant. Any television programme that I've seen broadcast in high-def has only been 24p, with the exception of sport, so whether it is delivered as a 1080i or 1080p, it will look identical, as even the cheapest LCD TVs will be able to easily manage 2:3 pulldown removal (though some older ones might not). In PAL countries, pulldown removal is even easier, as 25p goes into 50i much easier than 24p into 60i (2:2 pulldown).

At the very least, there is little point in dismissing an HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player for lack of 1080p support, when 99-100% of the content you'll end up purchasing for it will only be 24p anyway.

As for the question of at what point the increase in resolution afforded by a 1080p screen will result in a noticeable increase in quality, you might find this report by the European Broadcasting Union helpful, in particular pages 7 and 8.

[melancholy]

I've got a quick question for you now. Is my $200 better spent on a 360 HD-DVD Player or the Best Buy 4-yr PSP? ($1800 42" Toshiba LCD TV)

That would be up to you, but personally I would rather spend $200 on a plan than another $1800 if something were to happen to the TV 3 years from now. If the TV holds up and nothing goes wrong with it, then hey, I guess it wasn't needed. But 4 years is a long time for something to potentially go wrong. Admittedly, though, I don't see too many Toshiba's going through the warehouse to service.

[Ex-Cyber]

My personal prediction (and I may, of course, be wrong) is that 720p/768p TV's are one of those halfway steps in technology that will quickly get overtaken by better technology, like LS-120 Superdisks and Divx-DVD's.

The problem with this analogy is that LS-120 and Divx weren't overtaken by better technologies, they were the "better technologies" trying to displace already-adopted competitors (Iomega Zip+1.44MB floppy and standard DVD, respectively). I find 1080p much more analogous to their situation than 720p.

Now if you're talking about broadcast standards rather than consumer standards, that's another story. I'm talking about what most people will be purchasing in 5 years, not what the FCC, etc considers to he "HD".

It's not just what the FCC considers HD, it's what the studios, TV networks, cable and satellite providers consider HD. This isn't some bureaucrat handing down commandments from on high, it's an entire industry trying to manage a transition to a whole new technology generation. There have been huge ongoing investments in that transition at every level for years, while 1080p is just now showing up as a major option in mainstream sets. I think that inertia alone is enough to keep 1080p marginalized for quite a while, to say nothing of the various practical issues with adopting 1080i/p in general. People will buy 1080p-capable sets; that's not the problem. The bottlenecks for actually delivering 1080p content are elsewhere.

[impetus]

The problem with this analogy is that LS-120 and Divx weren't overtaken by better technologies, they were the "better technologies" trying to displace already-adopted competitors

I've already conceded that those were poor analogies, but here's what I meant by them. LS-120 were stillborn because CD burners eliminated the need for them. DIVX discs were a dumb idea because nobody wants a DVD that will self-destruct in 48 hours.

Obviously the 720p standard has fared much better than either of those. I just see us moving past it in the next few years.

[Ex-Cyber]

LS-120 were stillborn because CD burners eliminated the need for them.

My memory could be playing tricks on me, but I'm pretty sure that LS-120 was stillborn because of the pre-existing popularity of Zip (which had already been out for 3 years), and by the time CD burners were cheap enough to compete with either of them, LS-120 was already hanging by a thread (at least in the US; I don't know about other markets). I can't recall ever actually seeing an LS-120 drive, while I've known several people and seen several offices/labs equipped with Zip drives. It's true that CD-R(W) and flash memory basically obsoleted that entire category, but I don't think they had much to do with LS-120 in particular.

[Gmc]

Now, here's the next question. I'm looking at Westinghouse and LG TV's since I get good discounts on them. Any idea if either are decent brands? The best discount I get is on Insignia, but I don't think I'll go that low end.

I got myself a LG 42" LCD TV And its fantastic (42LC2D I think). Pictures great even on standard def stuff too, which is a plus

[Quzar]

Obviously the 720p standard has fared much better than either of those. I just see us moving past it in the next few years.

I think there are some technologies that are so widespread that they NEED to stay the same for much longer periods of time than us videogame people are used to. Think of how long color TV was IDENTICAL. The only improvements prior to HDTV in the past 50ish years was digital tv which was more a function of the distribution method (satellite at first) and wasn't a huge step up in content delivery or anything.

Once the broadcasters switch to pure digital broadcasting from NTSC, I don't see another sweeping change for many many years. Of course, end-user devices could keep on improving, but the amount of uses for those improved modes will be limited (having a vga input on a TV doesn't really help you get better TV).

[Lunchbox]

I've got a quick question for you now. Is my $200 better spent on a 360 HD-DVD Player or the Best Buy 4-yr PSP? ($1800 42" Toshiba LCD TV)

Without question it is the PSP. Their plan saved my family's ass on our TV investment this past year and they're pretty good about keeping their customers happy with regards to it from what I found. We bought our old TV on the week after Christmas 2002, a 47" Samsung projection HDTV. We bought the 4 year plan back then.

Fast forward to this past Christmas 2006, guess what happens? The TV's picture begins to wobble and go all screwy. On top of that it won't accept 1080i signals anymore. A call to Best Buy later and they send someone over to take a look. Its decided that the TV isn't worth fixing because of the severity and its age. Best Buy gives us a full refund on the TV we bought 4 years ago, which we use to get a 50" 1080p Sony XBR plus another 4 year PSP. They take the old TV away and drop off the new one, no fuss.

Can you imagine? On the very last month of the PSP.

[Christuserloeser]

I have an older LG tube style 720p HDTV (also does 1080i). It is great, picture looks great even on non HD stuff, which I know some HDTVs have problems with. And also since it is not LCD, I don't get the non native resolution blurs. I'm not sure if you can buy tube style ones anymore, mine is like 2 years old. The TV has input for DVI, VGA, HDMI, 2 Component, 2 S-Video, and 3-4 composite. The only downside to the TV is the weight as it has to be close to 100lbs easy.

Thanks for mentioning it, Thomas. I didn't even know they do produce HD CRTs so I did some research and that's exactly what I want: Best possible picture even with SD content and best of all: there aren't any problems with non-native resolutions.

It's actually not that surprising that I didn't know about HD CRTs considering Samsung and Philips released the very first HD CRTs for the European market in late 2006.

- I think I'm gonna choose the Samsung one. The 29" non-Widescreen version goes for only 250 Euros on ebay and it seems to be the perfect thing to have.

Check standard def 480i content before you buy!

Most cheaper sets and even some fancier ones have shockingly bad deinterlacers and scalers giving horrific image quality on anything but their native-res 720p inputs. This applies equally to Composite, S-Video and interlaced RGB, though composite video on most HDTVs looks really nasty.

That's exactly what I am trying to avoid by buying a CRT.

[melancholy]

Topic bump.

So our loan at the bank went through yesterday. A loan was actually not necessary, but we desperately need to build up some credit (as we have none at the moment), so we thought taking out a small loan equal to what we already have in the bank and making regular payments would be better than applying for a credit card (plus the interest is almost half).

Anyway, after doing some comparisons and checking employee discounts, we finally settled on this:



A Philips 42" 720P LCD. This is my best purchase ever. I had no idea what I was missing on an old tube TV until I plugged in my flash drive into the USB port on the side and looked at vacation pictures. My brain kept thinking I hung a huge picture frame on the wall. It was freakin' amazing. Popping in Oblivion was like playing a different game (though I had initial problems trying to get my 360 to even work in high def). Even standard definition stuff looks amazing on this TV. I plugged my Gamecube into the composite side port, and the picture still looked better than on a standard definition TV. Someone said to watch for a television that could scale well, and this one definitely does. And to top it off, the TV itself just looks nice. It has a glass stand and a high gloss frame surrounding it. All in all, this TV is amazing and I plan to keep it for many, many years.

And if I ever do decide to get equipment that supports HDMI, this TV has two ports. However, most unfortunately it does not have any form of DVI or VGA hookups, though I believe I have seen adapters that would convert a HDMI port into a DVI port, but I'll have to look into it. It would be nice to have the ability to hook my laptop up to it, but unfortunately it only has a VGA port, so I'm not sure what to do about that one.

[butters]

one day shv will hit and replace hdtv 1080p with shv's 7,680 x 4,320 resolution.


http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13228 ... ticle.html

but this will most likely be a long ways off until its affordable.

Probably not likely since those giantic resolutions are not visible to the naked eye at small level home systems. Now if televisions were the size of full walls, perhaps... but if television sizes stay the same (under 60") it won't be necessary.

Yeah I was going to say something similar. Unless you have a jumbotron, your eyes aren't going to be able to see any difference in those resolutions.

[Christuserloeser]

However, most unfortunately it does not have any form of DVI or VGA hookups, though I believe I have seen adapters that would convert a HDMI port into a DVI port, but I'll have to look into it. It would be nice to have the ability to hook my laptop up to it, but unfortunately it only has a VGA port, so I'm not sure what to do about that one.

The Samsung HD CRT I mentioned in my previous post in this thread (which I just bought for 200 Euros @ ebay ) doesn't have a VGA port either, but Component instead. I plan to buy a VGA-to-Component adapter (scroll down a bit) to connect my Dreamcast.

[Lartrak]

I think there are some technologies that are so widespread that they NEED to stay the same for much longer periods of time than us videogame people are used to. Think of how long color TV was IDENTICAL. The only improvements prior to HDTV in the past 50ish years was digital tv which was more a function of the distribution method (satellite at first) and wasn't a huge step up in content delivery or anything.

[/quote]

And to top it all off, color TV was REQUIRED to be compatible with black and white sets.

Probably my favorite example of "modern" tech that hasn't been updated in like forever, though, is 35MM film projection. It's been practically the same for over 110 years (and most of the changes were compatible with existing tech). And it doesn't look likely to change anytime soon, as the theatre chains have no real incentive to upgrade - they already have perfectly working projectors which are fairly easy to maintain and repair. The new projectors cost far more and are far more expensive to repair - and to top it all off, quality improvement still isn't really there over film - certainly not over film formats larger than 35MM. And, of course, the studios foot the bill for transport and production of the celluloid itself.